The approaches described in this section are approaches that could be pursued, but not necessarily approaches that have been previously conceived or pursued. Therefore, unless otherwise indicated, it should not be assumed that any of the approaches described in this section qualify as prior art merely by virtue of their inclusion in this section.
Client computers frequently access websites at server computers by selecting links to web pages that appear on web pages of different websites or applications as rendered in a browser at the client computers. For example, website owners may choose to advertise their website with a search engine operator. Once the website owner registers an advertisement, the search engine operator may cause the advertisement to appear near search results for a web search in exchange for a monetary payment by the owner of the registered website. Links to websites also may occur in search results without payment or advertising, simply because the links are the most relevant results for a search query.
As another example, a website owner may choose to advertise its website on a web page of a related website that is not a search engine operator. For example, an owner of a rental car website may pay to have an advertisement for the rental car website appear on a web page of a hotel reservation website. The advertisements may function as links. That is, when a user clicks on an advertisement, the user device may be directed to the website of the advertiser. The website owner may provide the uniform resource locator (URL) of a web page to the operator of the website or application in which the advertisement appears.
The best web page or web page content to be shown to a user may be different for different requests depending on the context of the request, such as the device requesting the web page or the referral source of the web page request. However, in past approaches, web server computers typically direct all incoming client computer requests to the same page or application area regardless of context. Better approaches for delivering the web page that best matches the needs of a user at the time of the request are needed. Similarly, website resources other than web pages, such as images or JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) data files may be requested, and better approaches for selecting the website resource that best matches the needs of the user are also needed in such contexts.